Very rarely does a novel enrapture your emotions entirely and relentlessly. The winner of the Booker Prize 2023, Prophet Song presents a terrifying and shocking vision of a country sliding into authoritarianism and a deeply human portrait of a mother's fight to hold her family together.

Each time I picked up this book, I felt Eilish's transformation of hope to that of diminishing resolve, so much so that I found myself needing to lift my head from the book and breathe to calm my nerves. Early on in the novel, an enigmatic darkness permeates Eilish's life, holding her within its clutch, and the recurrent entrance of this darkness rings like a siren song of the canaries of the coal mines for the reader. Lynch’s profound lyrical prose so honestly, painfully and beautifully holds you in their grasp, making for a profoundly engaging and thought-provoking reading experience.

Prophet Song echoes the violence in Palestine, Ukraine and Syria, and the experience of all those who flee from war-torn countries. This is a story of bloodshed and heartache that strikes at the core of the inhumanity of Western politicians' responses to the refugee crisis.